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POLITICAL GENEALOGY
DNA Confirms Biden Link to Galway
Galway joins Mayo and Louth as an Irish ancestral home
Ireland loves to claim her own, so President Biden — who’s conspicuously proud of his 5/8 Irish ancestry — is a source of pride for many in the land of his ancestors. I first explored his heritage before he became Vice President, and later shared some of my findings in Irish America when he was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2013. My research on his mother’s side of the family led to the Cooley Peninsula in County Louth and Ballina in County Mayo, where I was fortunate enough to find his Blewitt cousins. But what about that remaining 1/8 that stemmed from his father’s side?
The name in question was Hanafy and it was the 1870 census for his great-grandmother, Mary A. Hanafy, that revealed that her parents had been born in Ireland. I tried to push back further, but as most genealogists know, crossing the pond to Ireland — especially for Famine era and earlier — is an iffy proposition, so this branch of the family tree remained stalled.
Over the years, I’ve heard from a number of people regarding Joe Biden, and when he…
